Selcouth
by The Readers Muse
Summary: There was something about it. About her. He was certain of it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own CBS's "Zoo". Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Inspired by this prompt: _"_ _I skipped like four cycles of reincarnation and I know you're pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes but it wasn't my fault please- please will you take me back?"_ – Set 1x01 "First Blood," directly after they part ways after their meeting at the zoo pathology lab.

 **Warnings:** reincarnation au, adult language, canon appropriate language, past lives, violence, character death (kinda), gun violence, angst, pre/established relationship.

 **Selcouth**

 _ **Chapter One**_

 _"Excuse me, Mitch Morgan? I'm Jamie Campbell. We spoke on the phone?"_

 _"Right. LA telegraph."_

 _"Yeah, that's right."_

 _"What can I do for you?"_

 _"You're the animal coroner?"_

 _"Veterinary pathologist."_

 _"I'm sorry?"_

" _Pathologist, not coroner."_

" _I specialize in diagnosing animal disease through examination of their issues, bodily fluids, other stuff."_

 _"Coroner suggests that they have to be dead to be of interest to me. They do not."_

 _"You want to know what incited the lions to kill the zoo keeper?"_

 _"And the men downtown. Yeah."_

 _"Well, that makes two of us."_

* * *

He drove home unsettled. Like the entire thing had been an itch he couldn't quite scratch as he pulled into his apartment building. For some reason he felt overly conscious of the security cameras in the underground parking as he locked his truck and forced one foot in front of the other until he was free of the uniform rows of concrete and cars. Swiping his fob so he could sidle into the awkward, semi-elegant lobby and collect his mail. Double checking the pile before walking over to the recycling bin and dumping the lot.

 _Junk mail. Fast food coupons. Real estate flyers. Blech._

He twisted the key in the lock and leaned into the door as he opened it. Dissipating any kinetic energy the action might have had in favor of making the entire thing harder on himself. Distracted as his brain worked it over. Rehashing bits and pieces of their conversation like there was some deeper meaning behind it.

There was _something_ about it.

 _About her._

He was certain of it.

The way she'd made even the smallest, most innocuous expression into something that had weight. _History._ The way he'd taken to her like breathing. Easy and natural like they'd somehow done all this before even thought he knew it was impossible. He snorted at himself when the ridiculousness of the observation sunk in. Toeing off his shoes and letting them sling shot into a distant corner before he locked the door behind him.

Still, something about her had _screamed_.

Piping familiar.

Intimate.

 _Known._

And the truth was, he didn't know how to shake it.

 _He'd seen her before, he knew that, but where?_

He'd tried to get to the bottom of it right then and there. Wondering of it had been her accent or the way she was dressed. He'd originally passed it off as small talk when he'd asked her where she was from. But that hadn't been it. There was something more. Something that was-

He crossed over to the fridge and snagged a beer. Twisting off the top and taking a long drag from the bottle before collapsing across the couch. Stretching out across the worn leather and inching off his socks as he considering the problem logically. Letting them drop behind the couch – probably never to be seen again – as he fiddled idly with the label.

 _This_ was a thing though, wasn't it?

Déjà vu or some sort of equivalent.

Something explainable.

Plausible.

One of those little mysteries that-

" _I'm sorry I couldn't give you what you wanted, all right? Sometimes a mystery is just a mystery."_

" _Yeah, like missing cats in Brentwood."_

" _Okay. That's a saying."_

" _No. Apparently there's a rash of missing cats in Brentwood."_

" _Hmm._ _How do they know they're missing? Maybe they just couldn't get into a good private school?"_

He sighed and levered himself off the couch, giving up on any semblance of relaxing. Pacing and restless as the general antiseptic mustiness of the labs wafted up from his clothes. He wrinkled his nose, unbuttoning his shirt as he padded over to the window and he set his beer on the sill. Peering out into the half-dark. Watching the wind rustle softly through the overly manicured trees and strategic shrubbery that made up the buildings narrow strip of decorative lawn.

It paled in comparison to the trees you used to see. Those big, old growth oaks that used to be dotted all over the place. The kind that took layers off you sharpening stone, a half dozen axe handles to chop your way through. The ones that created stumps that took more than seven years of rot and an entire trio of oxen to clear.

His body still remembered the firm of those calluses. The hard burn of the new world sun and the sway of a horse underneath him. The warm pride that kindled in his chest when he caught sight of her in front the house he'd built with his own two hands. One hand shaded over her eyes, blocking the glare of the sun. Waiting for him with a smile on her face as their son tugged insistently at her skirts.

He jerked away from the window, nearly upsetting his beer as he looked down at his hands. Blinking with unsteady double vision as his palms wavered between what he was used to seeing and something else. Familiar but altered. Tanned dark brown and streaked with the grime of a near permanent dirt. Working hands laced with spider-thin cuts, old scars and angry callouses from hard labor. But there were also softer ones. The ones that knew the glide of a woman's skin. The ones that'd helped birth his child when there'd been no doctor or mid-wife to call. The ones that had-

They'd been making a life for themselves there.

In that peaceful valley pocket of trees and slated stone.

Something that was purely their own.

Something that would be passed down.

 _A legacy._

He remembered the agony of it when he'd stumbled backward with a gut full of shot. The smell of burnt bread. A horse thief. His dog whimpering in a heap by the entrance to the barn. An outlaw. The baby was screaming. The harsh sound of unfamiliar boot spurs. He remembered his fingers curling into bone dry dirt. Pain lancing through every inch of him as he brought his shotgun up against his chest and aimed down the barrel. Shooting the son of a bitch square in the back as he advanced on the house. Killing him dead as the kick back thumped his head back against the parched earth.

He hadn't started off as a farmer.

He'd had other interests once.

Other gifts.

Other dreams.

But when he'd met her?

 _Christ, he would have stolen the moon from the stars just to see her._

He blinked and suddenly she was there. Hovering above him with those same stars for eyes. Or maybe they were tears. He didn't know. He couldn't tell for certain. Either way they glistened all the same. His Jamie - _no, not Jamie_. She'd had another name then. Another name but the same face. His world shifted and she was holding his head in her lap. Rocking him back and forth as their son - _his son_ – curled himself into a ball on his other side. Pleading with messy brown curls and those wide green eyes of his. Pleading for him to stay.

 _Don't go, papa._

 _Don't go._

But he was cold.

 _So cold._

He opened his mouth, but her lips were already there.

"I will find you again," she murmured, whispering into his hair. Fingers carding through the long waves that brushed his shoulders. Kissing him with trembling, tear-stained lips as the weightlessness in his limbs hummed. A growing silence took the strength from her final words and rendered the world mute. _Numb._ He remembered keeping his eyes open for as long as he could. Memorizing the curves of her face. Every freckle. Every line. Every perfect imperfection that'd always made her his.

It wasn't the first time they'd been here, he realized distantly. They had a legacy that was all their own. Spanning as far off as he could remember. It had always been them. And it _would_ always be them. They were the only constant. The only thing that was remade, time and time again.

But for some reason that'd been the last time, at least for him.

He'd been absent.

 _Missing._

Ever since the end of that life, feeling the warmth of his own red escaping through her fingers and the harsh sun trying to blind him from above, there'd only been blankness. He'd left her alone. Not simply then but every time she'd come back since. _Until now._ Until-

He came back to himself in mid-fall, toppling back against the arm of the loveseat as he tipped into the butter soft leather. Knees weak and rubbery as he breathed unsteadily -hard and fast and awfully close to hyperventilating as he knitted his fists together to step them from trembling. Trying to separate one reality from the other as the world spun off-centre around him.

What the hell was-

But by then the last puzzle piece clicked into place and he yanked himself upright with an angry sound. Nearly falling over again as he swayed in place. Fingers cutting half-moon grooves in the leather cushions as her face – _Jamie_ – flashed. Face set with that familiar tic of determination he knew all too well. Absolutely committed to nailing Reiden Global to the wall and back as she'd peppered him questions about the lion attack.

 _She found him._

Just like she'd said she would.

The world had brought them back together and-

Oh.

 _Oh, shit._  
 _  
_ _She was going to be pissed._

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter, stay tuned.

 **Reference:**

"Selcouth": Rare, unusual, and wondrous, selcouth connotes an air of mystery and unfamiliar exquisiteness, which has been unexpectedly discovered. Strange, yet beautiful, selcouth should be reserved to describe the extraordinary.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own CBS's "Zoo". Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Inspired by this prompt: _"_ _I skipped like four cycles of reincarnation and I know you're pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes but it wasn't my fault please- please will you take me back?"_ – Set 1x01 "First Blood," directly after they part ways after their meeting at the zoo pathology lab.

 **Warnings:** reincarnation au, adult language, canon appropriate language, past lives, violence, character death (kinda), gun violence, angst, pre/established relationship.

 **Selcouth**

 _ **Chapter Two**_

" _This is me hoping 'I found the cats' isn't a line you use on the girls in the bars."_

" _I don't go to bars."_

" _Right, you don't like people."_

" _I like people."_

" _Just prefer it when they're not around."_

" _You found the cats?"_

" _Well, I got to thinking about what you said._ _Dozens of missing cats just seemed so, you know, odd._ _Domestic cats will wander, but they'll always come back to their food source._ _And a mass cat-kidnapping seemed to defy reason._ _So I thought maybe there was a predator."_

" _Okay."_

" _Figured I'd drive around a bit, see if I saw anything."_

" _You went on a cat stakeout?"_

" _I did."_

" _Uh, one crossed the road, a Siamese, which means it's somebody's pet. So I followed it."_

" _The cat stakeout turned into a cat pursuit."_

" _Yeah."_

" _Uh, look, you're kind of freaking me out right now."_

" _So, what happened? Where's the cat?"_

" _You got to see for yourself."_

* * *

He spent about three hours agonizing over it, but eventually he shot off a text. Waiting for a handful of beats before texting again with clarification. Baiting the hook as he stood outside his truck with a fucking flashlight. Caught between second guessing everything and being legitimately weirded out that the whole missing cat thing had turned into an actual- well, _thing_.

The entire conversation was awkward. And honestly, he figured he probably wasn't helping matters. He was still trying to work it out. To see if she knew. If she recognized him. Or if he'd completely lost touch with reality and this was him just fucking hallucinating or- _well-_ something equally depressing.

The thing was though, part of him knew. He knew he wasn't crazy. He knew who she was and what she meant to him. _He just knew._ Like fog rising from the soil at midnight, she was a specter that would always be familiar. It didn't matter how many times they did this. Or how many cycles he missed. He would know her anywhere. They were each other's memory – each other's perfect half. Living, breathing proof that no matter who they were apart, they were _meant_ to do this. To go through each and every life together.

It wasn't until after Animal Control and been, laughed and gone that she rounded on him. Hands on her hips as they stood there on the uneven sod of the school playground. The beam of his flashlight getting tangled in the shadows when he realized she'd known all along. Maybe not at first sight, but afterwards - just like him. She'd been standing there next him the whole time while he'd been sweating bullets trying to figure out how to broach it. Letting him stew just because she could.

 _And Christ- it was like falling in love with her all over again._

"You bastard," she hissed, somewhere beyond angry even as her mouth did that thing. That upward tilt at the very edges that stood out like a tell. Making something tighten in the back of his throat as everything he'd been holding back slowly started to trickle in. "Where were you?!"

He deflated like a punctured balloon. So grateful he could have cried before yelping when a sharp little finger started poking at his chest. Advancing on him with glittering eyes as he stepped backwards, more or less suitably cowed. Hands up in clear surrender as the beam of his flashlight skittered across the grass in awkward, looping circles.

"Ow! I would like to point out that technically - _ow!_ \- this is not my fault," he started, pushing his glasses back up his nose as she backed him into a tree. Getting right up in his face as his fingers itched to touch. Wanting to capture the sheath of hair that was hanging in front of her eyes and tuck it back behind her ear.

"You left me alone! Four lives, Mitch! _Four!_ I looked for you, every time! You have no idea what that's like! I couldn't find you! I thought-"

"You think I wanted this?! You think I wanted to leave you alone!? It isn't like I can be held accountable for when I reincarnate, Verity," he snapped, pausing and cutting himself off as her old name slipped free. The one that'd been hers last time around. The one that'd sounded like a sin coming out of his lips those times in the dark together - when he forgot that a man and a woman's time together wasn't supposed to feel so right. That it was better than what was preached at service and a hundred times more holy.

"Jamie, sorry- _christ_ ," he corrected, muttering disparagingly about the entire situation until something in her expression changed and her hand made tracks across his chest. Spreading out as her warmth hazed through the thin of his shirt. So close, but still so far.

"Fuck," he articulated a handful of seconds later. Surprising himself with the strength behind it as the weight of everything they'd been though finally permeated.

"Agreed," she muttered shakily. Because of course she did. Leaning into him like permission as he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her and drew her in. Inhaling throatily as she tucked her head into the space under his chin that seemed to be made for her. "I missed you."

"I know," he rasped. Wavering together in the dark as the past and present collided with remarkably little fanfare.

"There's more," he said unsteadily. Bunching her hair up to his nose as the moment threatened to grow legs. Neither of them wanting to let the other go despite the sound of approaching footsteps and the distant, indignant honking at the intersection a couple blocks away. Not exactly the appropriate theme music, he had to admit.

"I know there is, but I'm having trouble making it out. The last time, that's the only thing that's clear. I remember- I remember…dying. Someone was trying to steal the horses. He was- he was heading towards the house. The baby was crying. I had to-"

He cut himself off there.

Not strong enough to ask the difficult questions.

Like what happened next.

What happened to her?

What happened to their son?

How- _  
_  
"At least we found each other," he tried after a long moment, rooted by the careful quiet that was radiating off her like an intermittent signal. The feeling not unlike getting second prize at a science fair as he tried and failed to break the tension. Good, but not quite good enough.

"I'm still pissed at you," she told him, shivering slightly as the wind picked up. Voice muffled into his jacket and slightly damp with silent tears. Wondering offhand what it said about him considering the whole thing only made him want to smile.

 _Christ, he'd missed her._

"As long as you're here and pissed at me, I think I'm fine with that," he answered honestly.

She shuddered a laugh into his chest. Mouthing into the fabric for a long moment before pulling back and looking up at him. Just as beautiful as he remembered and twice as strong.

"Take me home."

* * *

It wasn't until they pulled into his parking garage that he realized he'd just assumed.

He turned to look at her. One hand ghosting down the firm of the emergency break. Hesitating to put it into park. Trying to figure out how to apologize or maybe just skip right to all the reasons why they needed to stay close- possibly forever.

 _Why he needed her to be close._

 _Especially tonight._

But she just shook her head, beating him too it.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," she told him, head cocked in that way she had. "And believe me, because I've been to all of them. And the only thing that was ever missing was _you_."

He opened his mouth to reply the same moment she unbuckled her belt, leaned over and kissed him. Silencing him in the best possible way as he returned it hungrily. The shocks of the truck squeaking damningly in the concrete-quiet as she clambered over the console and into his lap. Fumbling with his seat belt the same second his hand reached down and hit the latch to slide his seat back. Giving them some breathing room as she hovered over him - breasts heaving, hair mussed up and wild - like the best part of déjà vu as her eyes found his through the dim, florescent-dark.

 _And ah-_

 _Yeah…_

 _He remembered this part, alright._

Something told him they were going to be just fine.

* * *

 **Reference:**

"Verity": Origin of the name Verity: Taken from verity (a truth, a reality), which is derived from the Latin veritas (truth) via the Old French verite. The name was popularized by the 17th-century Puritans.


End file.
